I, for one, will “get over it” when one of two things happens:
1.) Republicans and their apologists, up to and including President Bush, admit that had the intent of all the Florida voters been accurately recorded and tabulated, Al Gore probably would have won the election. That is, Bush is in office as a result of a technicality, and not the true will of the people.
2.) Clear evidence emerges to the contrary.
(3.) Hi, Opal!)
The West Palm votes have always been the ones I was concerned with. You have to believe that about 90% of the Gore double votes were intended for Buchanan or McReynolds to believe that they didn’t change the outcome.
The discrepancy was due to bias inherent in the ballot, NOT simply the inability of Gore voters to follow directions. In any election, x people are going to screw it up, and you not only have to do everything you can to minimize x, but you have to see that the x screw-ups affect the candidates proportionally. The second, I would say, is more important than the first. Neither was done with this ballot–the design was such that a Gore voter was somewhat more likely to make an error than a Bush voter. The vote was close enough that it made a difference. It is only unfortunate that no one had the foresight to anticipate this. (This is why I advocate rotating the names on the ballots.)
All that said, I don’t think there was anything to be done about these votes after the fact. I admit that Bush won on the “technicalities”, although he got spectacularly lucky in who had final say over many of the “technicalities”. I don’t ask for Bush’s resignation. All I ask is that he and his supporters stop claiming that the arguments against the legitimacy of the election results are ridiculous.
A mob is an unstable group of people roaming around waving torches and pitchforks and breaking stuff.
Majority rule is consulting citizens and taking the course most approve of.
I hope you can see the difference.
Well, I have to place my self in former Governor Racicot’s camp: If there are two holes punched in the ballot, how can you ever establish who the individual intended to vote for? The article seems to assume the people intended to vote for Gore? What’s up with that? How do you know who Betty Liebowitz, aged 87, intended to vote for? You don’t, and any attempt to say to the contrary is “mere speculation,” just as the Republican spokesperson said.
If the ballots are double-punched, they are invalid and cannot be counted. This to me is just common sense. To engage in speculating whom these people really intended to vote for seems to me to be nothing more than navel-gazing. The ballots were invalid; they were thrown out; Bush won. Gore would have won if the ballots had not been invalid or if they were all counted for him? So what? Gore presumably would have won if Bush had been hit by a truck the night before the election. But Bush wasn’t and Gore didn’t – win, that is. He lost. And Bush is president. And I firmly believe that a lot of people should just get over it, though I see little indication that they will. I notice that a lot of people weeping over “democracy lost” and deploring how American ideals were compromised in the election do not seem to care much about the tenet of democracy that dictates that once a winner is chosen, the people accede to that choice and move on, much less the American ideal of supporting and respecting the office of the presidency, regardless of whether you personally care for the president.
The question was asked by Bob Cos, quite reasonably, about what the people and Bush should do at such time as there is no longer a reasonable case to be made that he was elected either by the will of the people or by the technicalities of the law. Even though Bush is, in fact, President, the question does have answers.
First, as for Bush, he should recognize (privately will do, but publicly would be more honorable) that the hard-right agenda he’s promoting so aggressively in this short window while the GOP has control of both houses of Congress is NOT what the people voted for or want, and that it’s in his best political interest and that of his party to go back to the middle course we DID vote for. Simply put, he should practice being a “uniter, not a divider”, just as he promised. A little more sense of how future historians will regard this episode would serve him well.
Second, as for we beleaguered voters, we should simply keep reminding him of the above, and expressing it at the polls. Meanwhile, we should keep pressing for the voting mechanisms to be fixed, of course (including the Electoral College or not) - no arguments to the contrary have reached these eyes or ears.
Those things have been true all along, though. What has also been true is that we have a right and an obligation to know the truth about what really happened.
I’m not going to bother to read the intervening posts, I’m just responding to the OP.
We already knew that the butterfly ballot hurt Al Gore by resulting in considerable over-voting and/or mis-voting in Palm Beach County. We also know that any voter who turned in a ballot with either two identifiable votes for President, or with one identifiable vote for the ‘wrong’ slate of electors, made a mistake that would never invalidate the result of tabulation. Therefore, Gore did NOT win the Florida vote. At best, he should have won the election in Florida.
Of course, reading the response from Mr. Racicot makes one wonder why the Republicans have to resort to acting as if they are brain dead when dealing with this issue… :rolleyes:
You likewise assumed that people didn’t know who they were voting for. The analysis in question can make certain assumptions. For instance, if Gore and Buchanan was punched, we can assume a mistake. We can assume a direction of the mistake by assuming how the mistake was made. We are not free to assume that because they screwed up then Bush deserves to be president. It was in ILLEGAL ballot in some instances. I don’t share your assumption that we need to move on in all circumstances, there must be regret to injustice and if people feel that a mistake was really made, they may vote differently in four years to correct it. Also, some of us want to know if corruption had anything to do with it. I just spent four years watching Republicans demonize a lame-duck president needlessly. They have figured out that they not only want to throw Democrats off their game, but to make people afraid of them. There is nothing to be afraid of. They are proven hypocrites everytime they try to sell themselves as the moral alternative.
Man, I’ve read all the posts above, and I get the impression that noone even bothered to read the article.
It’s total bullshit. It has absolutely zero grounding in logic. Basically it says that a number of people voted for Gore and an additional candidate. The article concludes from this that those voters really wanted to vote for Gore, therefore he won.
a) Why is it reasonable to assume that anyone who voted for two candidates wanted to vote for Gore?
b) Why is it reasonable to count the vote of someone who voted for two candidates?
Incorrect. I’m sure each of them individually knew exactly who they intended to vote for. The point is that with two holes punched, there is no way to establish what that intention was.
No, we can’t. That’s the whole point. If the ballot indicates a vote for two different candidates – which, being punched twice, it would – then it must be invalidated, precisely because we may not make any assumption about what the voter intended.
Actually, this is not an assumption, it is a value judgment (“Bush deserves to be president”) or a flat-out fact (“Bush is president”). I have no problem with awarding the election after discarding invalid ballots; in fact, I see no alternative. If the ballot is “screwed up” to the extent that it is invalidated (which these were) then it is not counted – precisely because the intention of the voter cannot be ascertained and the magnitude of the error cannot be surmounted at all, and certainly not be assuming the intent of the voter, which obviously cannot be ascertained.
These ballots were illegal? I don’t think so. I think they were confusing, which is not the same thing.
I realize some people do not agree with this. And you’ll have four years to fume about it.
There is no indication from the article in question that corruption entered into the design of the ballot or the discarding of the invalid votes. Do you have some evidence to the contrary?
Blah blah blah. I don’t care what excuse people make for refusing to accept that the election is over and the president is a man named Bush. I don’t care whether the people in question like him or not. I just wish they would give the Florida issue at least enough of a rest to show respect for the office if not the man. He IS the president. He WILL BE the president for the next four years, like it or not. These are not statements made out of bragging or to lord it over Democrats; they are simple, incontravertible facts. Deal with it.
You missed the point, perhaps entirely. We were talking about an analysis of who would have won, not who should now become president. As such, we can make assumptions about who a voter intended to vote for based on probablity and the direction of the mistake minus margin of error. Sounds like you’re the one in denial here. Bush is illegitimate, get over it.
No, “we” weren’t. “We” were talking about whether the article referenced in the OP (you remember the OP?) made any difference to “Bush apologists” (of which I do not consider myself) and how “we” would explain it. “We” explain it by merely pointing out that the Palm Beach Post cannot trumpet BUTTERFLY BALLOT COST GORE THE ELECTION without assuming that all or most of the invalid votes would have gone to Gore – and we cannot assume that. There is no way to establish the intent of the individual voters and therefore NO assumption that may be drawn from their ballots – except that they are invalid as being insufficient to express the voter’s intent.
Ah, I see. So now you assume whom the voter would “probably” have voted for because you admit that you cannot prove whom the voter tried to vote for. And this advances the argument how?
I don’t think so. At this point, Bush is president; the intent of the voters in question cannot be established; and assumptions and/or conclusion as to what might have been, based on probability or guess-work, mean less than nothing in the real world. If you sense denial in any of those statements, feel free to point it out.
No, I’m pretty sure his parents were married. He IS the president. He WILL BE the president for four years – these are incontestable FACTS that you appear to be unable to digest. Whether his presidency is “legitimate” or not in YOUR eyes is frankly something I can’t exert myself to care about. Like I said – spend the next four years eating your own liver over this, I truly don’t care; I just don’t see that it’s very productive.
We’ve had “illegitimate” presidents before-they were voted out after four years, the country moves on.
I really wish Gore had won, but he didn’t, and I think he’s probably going to make a better come back later on, hopefully. If not, then hopefully we’ll get someone better.
Just as long as Bush stays away from the environment. Please God, don’t let him near the environment.
Or the nukes. PLEASE. Just put a big Mister Yuck STicker on the nukes.
We can assume the voter’s intent based on certain information. Just because you don’t want to doesn’t mean we can’t. We merely assume they intended not to double punch.
NO, the nukes. We don’t want him playing with them. Mr. Cheney better make sure little Georgie won’t touch. They’re so nice and shiny…
MOMMY!!!
Like Dennis Miller said-just don’t fuck anything up-just kick back and don’t screw with things. Right now, that’s the best advice we could hope for sometimes…
Sure we can. We can assume all day long. We can assume the Moon is made of cheese. We can assume the world is flat. We can assume that magical fairies fly around putting dreams into little children’s heads.
Assumption doesn’t equal fact. And you can’t choose a President based on “assumptions”. Well, a rational person can’t, anyway.
You need “facts”. You know what “facts” are, Mr. Bunnyhurt? 'Cuz, in all the threads I’ve seen you in, you seem short on them.
Oh, please. The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
If the environment is in trouble, blame yourself. Some of the most damaging pollutants are by-products of energy production. And as long as WE Americans remain the #1 users of energy in the world, we will be the biggest polluters in the world. Especially since it’s well documented that we don’t want to be bothered with cleaner though more expensive alternatives, such as solar energy. (Jimmy Carter was the only President in recent history who really pushed for an alternative to fossil fuels. And remember how quickly we booted HIM out of office? Why? It certainly wasn’t our concern for the environment. It was the ECONOMY, stupid.)
If you haven’t traded your car in for a bike, if you haven’t turned off your a.c., if you haven’t organized a car-pool in order to reduce toxic emissions, then please quit yer bitching. Because you don’t need a Presidential mandate to trade in your Yukon for a Yugo.
Finally, might I remind you that the U.S. was the lone hold-out on the nuclear testing ban proposal…under President Clinton?? Not that nuclear testing damages the environment any.
The rule that the Supreme Court has the final say. If you didn’t like that rule, you should have tried to have it changed before the election.
Brian Bunnyhurt
Make up your mind. Are we talking about who would have been president given some hypotheticasl situation, or are we talking about who should be president? “Legitimacy” is about should, not would.
Its called natural deductive reasoning, no facts required. Is this one of your attempts to dismiss the use of reason again? Anyway, it is a fact that Bush did not receive the majority of votes nationally and does not deserve the presidency for other reasons too. This will handicap him in the next election. Some concerned voters, especially those who think for themselves, regret illegitimate presidents.
Ryan,
Make up your own mind, this is about who should be president, not who is president. When an injustice occurs, we investigate to find out what went wrong, not everyone is a religious fatalist. When someone is murdered, we often say, that should not have happened. A fatalist will say, via scripture, that was meant to happen. See why conservatives are mostly religious now?
Stoid, enlighten me (seriously). Even if we concede that the ballot was designed in violation of the rules (is this actually a fact? I’ve heard both sides make contrary arguments), what did the pre-election rules dictate we do after the votes were cast? What was the remedy for Palm Beach specifically? What would have assigned legitimacy for you from the Bush camp in response to a problem that was not of his design, that he had nothing to do with?
Are you some sort of twisted, LSD-induced Vulcan or something? What you’re spouting is NOT reason, it is conjecture. It is not reasonable to proclaim someone the winner of an election based on an assumption. Especially when the facts (Bush got more votes, in every single friggin’ recount) fly in the face of that assumption.
Reason is based on facts. Reason is NOT based on conjecture. Reason is NOT based on “guessing”. Reason is NOT based on “he MAY have gotten more votes”. Reason is based on fact.
Repeat those five words, Mr. Bunnyhurt, over and over. “Reason is based on fact… reason is based on fact.”